Venus Foods

This place is incredible — neatly stacked shelves full of all the Turkish, middle eastern and mediterranean food you could ever possibly dream of. This is definitely the place to come to stock up on olives, grains, pulses and turkish delight! But the best part is the bakery at the back of the store that sells freshly baked turkish breads. INCREDIBLE.

I love a good world supermarket, the options are so much more interesting than your average Asda or Tesco, who assume I eat only gargantuan multipacks of crisps (only half right there) — I visited Venus on the way home on a recommendation from a fellow Unilocaler.
This place seems to stock most of the usual suspects of middle eastern food and at decent enough prices — nothing to get too excited about. There’s a couple of fridges for fresh veg, you could pick up most of your standard bits here. There’s a few highly stacked aisles of tinned, dried and jars of food, from pulses to pickles — I picked up a tin of hummus & tahini (you add lemon & garlic yourself, good shout) for peanuts. A serviceable butchers and even some household goods (pans & the like) make it possible to do most of your shop here, unless you’re a big fan of pig (like me) — they’ve even got beer, which I’m not sure I’ve seen in any ‘ethnic’ food store before.
The bakery at the back of the shop is probably the highlight, the smells alone make Venus worth a visit, it’s delicious! To further tempt your tastebuds there’s also a small café in store doing kebabs and enticing sounding Turkish pizzas — I could see myself stopping in for a quick bite on my way home one time.
Venus is a little out of my way, but possibly has enough unique products to my more local asian food store, Madina on Stockport Rd, to make a detour.

It’s difficult to write a review of this place. Simply because I haven’t really got my head around the vastness of what’s on offer. There’s an in-​house fast food joint which is more suited to carnivores which serves delicious fresh food.
What I can say however is that Turkey being my favorite holiday destination, every visit makes me feel like I’m on holiday. A much cheaper way to entertain myself and enjoy the aromas of a Turkish foodstore.
The freshly baked bread is to die for in here. Priced at just 89p, the sheer size of the thing means it’s an absolute bargain compared to your average loaf of Warburtons.
The range of drinks and general foodie stuff on offer will have you coming back for more every time. Highly recommended it is from me. Something that won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s seen how often I check in to this place.

Great range of foods and supplies. And when you’ve worked up an appetite you can grab a shawarma and salad from the restaurant too. A really nice range of meats, olives, spices, breads and sweets in particular.

This place used to be really good but in recent times, it’s really deteriorated to a point where I was tempted to notify the health authorities! There is an awful smell where the carpark is, like stale piss, stuff running out of their vents… Their «fresh» fruit and veg display lies rotting and shrivelled up, shelves are in a mess and unstocked, the bloke at the meat counter was openly picking his nose while cutting up the meat and the freezers looked filthy! I couldn’t believe how this place has gone to the dogs… I most definitely will never go back! As an aside, the owners must be loaded… Every day 2 very expensive fancy cars are parked right by the door!

Venus is a strange place. I don’t really know what to make of it and yet, strangely, I love it.
See, this odd little treasure trove has loads of stuff that I stare at for hours and wonder what the blooming crikey it is.
In amongst the interesting mediterranean and middle eastern items is the usual Pot Noodle convenience store goodness. They also do a great line in Polish bread which is well worth sniffing out.
They’ve also got a bakery out back and a new fast-​food add-​on if you want a Turkish pizza or a kebab.
Also, be sure to check out the butcher at the back. He’s a cheery ol’ bugger and dishes up halal meat as well as whole goat heads.
Maybe the latter is something of a niche interest.
And to think that this place used to be legendary gig venue, The International 1 where Public Enemy once played.

If you eat or cook a lot of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern food Venus is the place to pick up what you need. I used to live with an Iranian girl and often came with her to pick up some specialty food she couldn’t get at ASDAs, and I was always amazed at the staff and the service.
The staff are really friendly and the store is really well kept. They stock a range of Western and Med/​Middle Eastern (mostly Turkish) foods and grocery items. The fruit and veg always looks a bit battered, but as far as I’m concerned a pomegranate is a pomegranate. They’ve got some really good coffees, olives, baklava, meat and oils.
They have opened a kebab shop fairly recently where you can get a proper Turkish chicken kebab. Really delicious and a million times better than the Oxford Road guff most people subject themselves to. This is kebab cooked properly with some pride and dignity. And it is tasty as you like.

Yes! Venus Supermarket is really quite great. What Rob has said basically.
It’s a big Turkish cash and carry place, that sells a wonderment of weird and wonderful food in my drab English eyes. There are more olives here than I have ever seen in my life — literally an entire aisle.
There’s not much fruit and veg here but there is a meat counter at the back and a myriad of lentils, beans, pickles and that kind of thing. It will definitely make your cupboard in the kitchen twice as interesting if you fill it with some of the goodies from Venus Supermarket.

Venus Foods is legendary amongst the student population of Victoria Park. They are enamored by its peculiar range of goods and services, and at the variety of strange and mysterious items available within. They marvel at the exotic flavours and mysterious packaging. Presumably it’s also useful to the people nearby for whom such food reminds them of home.
Situated at the crossing of Anson and Dickenson Road, it stands ready to deliver Turkish goodness to all who enter. Inside you will find a standard array of brand name goods, but also various imported foods, spices, breakfast cereals, juice drinks. Anything really. Which is why it’s so much fun to buy from.
There’s also a bakery and meat counter, and a kebab shop now as well, although the prices are a little to expensive to justify buying from. The prices elsewhere in the shop though are damn good. Exactly what bargains you can obtain are dependent on when you go, but I have bought a 24 pack of Coke for a fiver before.
It’s a bit like a Kinder Egg; the real joy is in finding out what’s inside.

Just bought some lamb from Venus foods 17.18 p. m Nov 24^th 2009. Got home only to find that the lamb stunk! had totally gone off. Rang them up to complain and was being jerked around until I said I was going to the Manchester City Council. I live faraway so I had to take a taxi to and from and BLATANTLY told them that I would NOT be paying for the taxi. After much languish and shouting, they relented and paid. The manager didn’t even look at or smell the meat in my presence. Seriously guys, you need to make sure that your fridges are in the correct working condition.
Disgruntled customer, aaaarrrgh!!!

Venus is legendary for not having anything you wanted, but so much more! Their packaged/​frozen meat is mostly to be avoided but their meat counter at the back is actually good value. There’s a good selection of fruit and veg along with more traditional turkish foods.
If you’re just after something for tea you can’t really go wrong, they have quite a lot of the normal british stuff but I wouldn’t recommend it for weekly shopping. Avoid the chicken pâté.

Known locally as ‘penis foods’ but I assure you it’s just an affectionate name, don’t let it put you off. This place is a treasure trove for any mediterranean /​middle eastern foodstuffs and reasonable prices. There’s amazing selections of pulses, pasta, oils, olives, breads, and baclava.
I once saw someone get brutally assaulted outside, presumably because he’d just made off with the last of the beyazpeynirkuru kayisi, highly prized by both the Anson Crew and the Longsight Soldiers.